P. Schuyler Miller

“ He had Tranda to think of, and Teena. His Emperor, and his mate.
Tranda’s aura was regaining color. Steepa bent over Teena’s shriveled form. Her skin and her aura were leaden, her eye-stalks retracted almost into the body of her sphere. Her slender tubes lay limp and pallid.
He gathered her to him with tender tubes. He could feel the stir of gases just beneath her skin and the fitful pulse of her diaphragm. In time the shattered atoms of her brain and vital organs would rebuild themselves and restore the delicate equilibrium of life, but there was no time! ”

“ Their auras pulsed and glowed with a single light. Teena’s tints were soft and greyed with puzzlement as she replied.
“No bud of Steepa’s ever will feel fear, nor shall its mother now. But why do we go so far from Neptune? Why do we not remain where we can protect her from attack?”
Steepa’s aura was bright. “Just like a woman,” he boasted. “It takes a man to make war! If Ay-Artz is to be defeated, we must stop him before he can gain a foothold on some planet in our midst, and to do that the forces of every planet will be necessary. ”

“ In Tranda’s blurred mind was an awareness that wrote the truth. This Spot of Death that was the source of the dreadful death-dealing radiations was a gravity trap, a mass of matter so heavy that it warped the structure of space and sucked into its flaming maw all that ventured, helpless, within its reach. ”

“ Once, too, a comet passed flaming across the stars above that burning disc. Teena shuddered, her aura suddenly cold. Somehow that curving gauze of fire, shimmering with emerald opalescence, seemed to her a warning and a menace, and she drew closer to Steepa and let his comforting tubes curl about her.
With the attraction of the great planet affecting their motion, the three commanders were forced to check their course with increasing frequency. Jupiter’s sphere now filled most of the visible heavens. ”

“ He turned to his mate. All his tubes went out to clasp her to him. Then he thrust her away gently.
“There must be two,” he hued. “One to pilot the ship and one to direct the power of the Trident. Will you be one, or shall Beema aid me?”
Proudly she swelled her grief-shrunken skin. Bravely she strove to bring the gold of courage to her sorrow-shaded aura.
“Command me, Bar Steepa,” she colored.
Side by side they faced the controls. Delicate indeed must be the touch that would pilot the mighty craft now, when inches separated life and death for them all. And that touch would be Teena’s. ”

“ Then with a crash of livid lightnings the three ships leapt as one from their tapered cradles and vanished in the swirling vapors of the gas-strata. Winds tore at the frail balloons and whirled them dizzily above the fungoid jungle. Then all was quiet again and only the viscidly stirring gas-strata showed where the war-fleet of cloud-wrapped Neptune had vanished into space. ”

“ Teena relieved her mate at the check-points, while he drilled his men in the hollow inner shell of the great ship. They were entering the crowded inner portion of the solar system now, and any hour might bring danger. Every last sphere of them must be absolutely proficient in the use of the weapons he would man. And Steepa saw to it that every one was.
From her post at the controls, Teena could see both the other ships. Idly she let her tubes stray across the board, plucking at the plungers that would bring Steepa’s form and colors to the screen. ”

“ Hueing softly she pressed her smooth skin against his, caressing his sinewy tubes with her delicate pads. Slowly his eye-stalks curved away until they met her, and his sulky violet softened and mingled with her gentle mauve.
“You are as good a pilot as I or Tranda,” he admitted, “but there will be danger for us all. You must remain in the sheltered parts of the ship when we are fighting. Remember – you have our hue to think of as well as yourself.” ”

“ Tranda! The Emperor’s skin was livid, his aura a wraith of negation!
“It is impossible,” he hued. “I have made the calculations. If our speed is checked, if we lie motionless for the fraction of instant that it takes to reverse the Trident’s force, the gravity of Jupiter will seize us. We must go faster – fast enough to pass the Spot before its deadly rays can beat thru the glassite and strike us down. Faster, or we will call into the Spot. Into death!”
Steepa’s mind was dazed. ”

“ Two tubes had been torn from his body and the vital gases were gushing from half a dozen wounds.
“Tranda!” he flashed. “The son of Deebul has taken the ship. He was disguised, with scores of his followers. They have slain all who—“
His waning colors went out. Then behind him in the screen loomed a livid jade-green sphere to whose skin clung shreds of purple pigment. Deebul’s son – bud of some unknown woman of the arch-pretender’s harem! Triumphantly his colors challenged them – then the screen went dark.
Beside her Steepa’s aura flared. “Rouse the men!” he hued angrily. ”

“ It touched the ruin of the rebel ship and the glassite parted with a rush of golden vapors. Beneath it a bar of light pushed out and struck the severed mass. Sluggishly, then with greater speed, it moved aside. The nose of the flagship appeared, scarred and crumpled but intact. Before the little transparent port crouched the scarlet form of Neptune’s Emperor.
Now life seemed to pulse through Teena’s gases. Her aura was radiant. Her tubes fairly danced over the control-pits, wafting the giant craft thru space as tho it drifted before a gently breeze. ”

“ None of them, during those long, unvaried days, but thought of the dangers that threatened their fellow-planners on other planets – the Automatons of Earth, the scarcely less inhuman Xunia with her myriad bodies, and above all that Wrongness of Space whose mad power they had felt in the barren crater of Copernicus. ”

“ The first star touched the first hairline. Instantly, his skin shrinking nervously, Steepa sucked up plunger after plunger with tensely active cups. Infinitesimally the stars shifted on the space-chart, and gradually the readings of the many dials before him were altered to conform with those given by Mea-Quin. As the second and third stars touched the guiding lines, he snapped his tubes away and moved back. One by one, released from the suction of his cups, the control-plungers dropped back into their oil-filled pits. ”